


The Thrill of It All

by bideru



Series: Tales from Silvermoon [6]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Bottoming, M/M, Massage, aethas and astalor are epic bros, aethas has a praise kink, aethas hates kael'thas, arator and aethas just living their best life, arator has a filthy mouth, arator is a bad influence, arator just has so much love and most of it is lewd, bonus ari because i fucking love her, freewheeling in dalaran, i willl sail the crack ship myself if i have to, this was supposed to be soft and ended up... porn, vereesa has an aneurysm, you can decide for yourselves if vereesa is homophobic or just an asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:53:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27143437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bideru/pseuds/bideru
Summary: Aethas Sunreaver never thought anyone would love him the way all the stories said. Enter Arator Windrunner.
Relationships: Arator the Redeemer/Aethas Sunreaver, past unrequited Aethas/Rommath
Series: Tales from Silvermoon [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1747684
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	The Thrill of It All

**Author's Note:**

> This fic references another work in my Tales From Silvermoon series, Enough, very heavily. You don't need to read the entire fic to understand the plot, but a lot of lines are context-heavy. In particular, it references [chapter 39](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24298159/chapters/65395696#workskin). This fic (and the Arator/Aethas ship in general) is 100% inspired by Aegwynn's beautiful fics, [Unexpected Paradise](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23366194) and [Irresistible](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23650918).

One day ﹣ and perhaps one day very soon ﹣ Aethas was absolutely sure he would be murdered at the hands of Vereesa Windrunner. 

It hadn’t always been that way, and once, Aethas could recall Vereesa being a distant, unaffected presence in his life. She lived in the Violet Citadel with her family and husband, the Archmage Rhonin, and rarely did their paths cross. When they did, Vereesa more often than not ignored him, and when she couldn’t, politely inquired as to the nature of his studies before wishing him luck. Those were simpler times. 

Vereesa did not agree with Kael’thas that the Alliance had abandoned Quel’Thalas during the Scourge. Aethas recalled her fury as the elves left Dalaran, forbidden by royal decree to study in the city of mages any longer. Astalor had argued for Aethas’s staying ﹣ it would be useful to have a trusted ear amongst the humans, he’d reasoned, and Aethas, along with a small handful of others, was allowed to stay on the condition that they return home upon the completion of their schooling. For several precarious weeks, it seemed as if Aethas would be forced back to Silvermoon nonetheless, as his mentor had taken offense to the prince’s secession, and declared that he would no longer take on elven students. Ansirem Runeweaver had always been a crotchety old man, but he had been Aethas’s mentor, and being cast aside by such a powerful member of the Kirin Tor did nothing for Aethas’s already tattered reputation. If Rhonin had not agreed to teach him, he didn’t think he’d have been allowed to stay in Dalaran at all. 

That had been his first offense, in Vereesa’s eyes. 

It didn’t matter that mages like Aethas had defended the city from the Scourge. That mages like Aethas had thrown all their energy into ripping the city right out of the Alterac Mountains, sent it soaring safe into the sky. What mattered was that Aethas was an elf, and not even the right kind of elf. When Kael’thas pulled them from the Alliance, Aethas had agreed with him, and it was only the fact that Rhonin was the head of the Kirin Tor that kept Vereesa from throwing him off the edge of the city herself. 

His second offense lay with her nephew Arator. 

* * *

“Shouldn’t you be going home?” Aethas murmured, the _home_ distorted through a wide yawn. “Not that I’m complaining…” 

Arator, sprawled beside him in his ostentatious featherbed, rolled, draping himself across Aethas’s chest and tickling his skin every time he breathed. “Do you want me to?” He tilted his head to stare at him with his luminous golden eyes, and Aethas huffed a laugh.

“Of course not.” He brought his hand up to card through Arator’s hair, feeling more than hearing his rumbling contented sigh. The paladin adored having his hair stroked, and Aethas suspected he wore it long to facilitate that. Hair touching was an intimate gesture among elves, but Arator either didn’t know that or didn’t care. Humans placed no particular value on the caressing of hair, and Arator tended towards his human father in many ways. 

( _Many_ ways, Aethas thought, a wicked little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He’d been with humans before, and there were parts of Arator’s anatomy that were much more human in that regard.) 

“Then I won’t,” the paladin declared, fingers dancing along his collarbone. He had positioned himself nearly on top of Aethas, muscled thighs wrapped around his own. Aethas had never given much thought to muscles before Arator. Mages weren’t exactly known for their physical prowess, and they lived in a city of them. But Arator made muscles look like an art. He was not stocky like a human, but his body was shaped more like theirs than an elf’s. Aethas had always considered Farstriders and Silvermoon guards muscled, brawny even, but elves were all clean lines and sleek, corded muscle and Arator… Arator was _thick._ Thick thighs, thick biceps. A plush, attractive ass and well-defined chest. His was a body reminiscent of the time of Dath’Remar, the chiselled, robust look of the Highborne hardly removed from their kaldorei ancestors. He wouldn’t have looked out of place among the portraiture of Silvermoon and its ancient nobility. 

Aethas allowed his hand to drop, to stroke the paladin’s ear along the shell from lobe to tip, and Arator hummed. “Vereesa won’t like it,” he warned. (And nothing made him more aware of how much younger than him Arator was when he brought up the man’s aunt.) Arator chuckled, lips following the lines his fingers had traced.

“Since when do you care what my aunt likes?”

Aethas groaned as he felt a hand trail down his side. It tickled, but that was part of the attraction, and though they’d already had sex (and not even that long ago), he felt his cock stirring again. “I’d like to _enjoy_ my day tomorrow. I don’t need Vereesa glaring daggers at my back while I’m trying to work.”

“I can talk to her.”

“I don’t think that will solve anything.” 

While Rhonin had never mentioned his thoughts on Aethas’s relationship with his nephew, _Vereesa_ had made hers quite clear. Aethas was _corrupting_ Arator, their relationship was _inappropriate,_ and ﹣ Aethas’s favorite ﹣ Aethas was a cradle robber. (He wouldn’t say Arator was _that_ much younger than him, but Vereesa sure liked to throw the term around. He wondered what she would say if he were to point out that she had a good nineteen hundred years on Rhonin.) 

Arator hummed against his skin, tongue darting out to flick along his chest. “Probably not,” he agreed. “But you would feel better, wouldn’t you?”

“I’d feel better,” Aethas gasped, hissing in pleasure as the paladin’s teeth scraped lightly against his quickly hardening nipple, “if you stopped speaking of your aunt while you’re doing that.” 

“I could do something else.” There was a devious tone to his voice, and Aethas’s eyes narrowed. 

“I seem to remember you doing quite a lot earlier.” And Arator grinned into his skin.

“Not enough. I’ll have you screaming before the night’s end.”

Aethas flushed, a deep crimson that went all the way to his chest. He wasn’t inexperienced at sex, but he had never had the experience of another man _wanting_ him as openly as Arator did. Before the Scourge, when he was heir to House Sunreaver and his father was trying to bargain his way into high court life using his children, sex had been a series of discreet, clandestine affairs, more often than not a poor attempt to convince himself he was not still hurting over the long ago abandonment by his once close friend and crush. His father would have been angry and hurt and possibly more than a little offended that his oldest son preferred men to any of the dozens of eligible women in Silvermoon. He would have rathered Aethas marry a human woman than sleep with a man. But the Scourge had killed his father and mother both, and after the unlikely blessing that was Rommath allowing him to return to Dalaran permanently, Aethas had let his brother take up the mantle of Lord Sunreaver, and he did what he liked. His brother certainly didn’t care, doing much the same himself, and privately Aethas wondered which of his sons their father would be more ashamed of. Aethas the homosexual or Savan, squanderer of fortunes and father of bastards.

(Savan Sunreaver was worse than Halduron Brightwing, it was thought in many circles. Halduron Brightwing had not taken it upon himself to repopulate Quel’Thalas.)

But Arator was not shy in his desires for the mage, neither for voicing nor acting upon them. Was not shy at anything, and it was only Aethas’s wish that his tenure in the Council of Six be quiet and unremarkable that kept Arator from dropping in and taking him right there on his desk. 

(Not that they _hadn’t_ fucked in his office. But not as often as Arator would probably like.)

After the rejection of his best friend, the first real crush Aethas had ever had ﹣ and it wasn’t so much as rejection as complete and utter apathy towards an invisible lifeform ﹣ Aethas had found it difficult to convince himself he was desirable at all. Astalor could not convince him, though he certainly tried, and Aethas had considered himself fortunate that his previous partners had been _agreeable,_ not that they had wanted him. Oftentimes, he felt invisible more often than not, popping into existence briefly for the same sex and fading away as they lost interest. But Arator had seen him. 

_The first time I ever saw you,_ Arator had told him, _I thought you were the most beautiful man in the world._

(And _that_ was a load of hawkstrider shit if Aethas had ever heard one. The first time Arator had seen him, he’d barely been conscious. Laid out on a hospital cot, skin ruddy from exhaustion and slicked with sweat, his hands and face and chest burned from the effort he’d expended to heave Dalaran into the air. He hadn’t been beautiful or attractive in the least, but Arator maintained that the memory of Aethas had gotten him through many a lonely night before they’d met properly, that night at the Legerdemain Lounge.)

Arator chuckled at the blush coloring his skin as he kissed his way farther south ﹣ Arator didn’t embarrass easily, had probably never in his life blushed at all ﹣ and soon enough, he made good on his word to make Aethas scream, fucking him through his second ﹣ though not last ﹣ orgasm of the night.

* * *

“You work too hard,” Arator soothed. “Let me take care of you.” 

Aethas had not had a good day. _Work_ had actually been the least of it (though a heated argument with his old mentor, where Aethas was _sure_ the man only took the opposing side because _Aethas_ had brought up the point, had surprisingly been the least of it). He’d walked into Rhonin’s office that morning and interrupted an argument between the man and his wife, and from the way Vereesa glared, he was sure they’d been speaking of him. Rhonin, for his part, had been more than happy to drop the conversation and settle into council work, but Aethas felt Vereesa’s eyes on him until well into the afternoon. 

“I still have work to do,” he protested weakly, and Arator ignored him. His strong hands worked at the knots in his shoulders, his thumbs pressing gently but firmly along the line of his spine. His hands found their way into the mage’s hair, scritching lightly along his scalp, and Aethas groaned, eyes falling closed.

“I think you’re done,” Arator murmured, lips brushing along the shell of Aethas’s ear. He took the tip in his mouth and sucked, tongue teasing the sensitive skin in a way that shot straight to Aethas’s dick. “Come home with me.”

A garbled objection hissed through the mage’s teeth. Arator lived with his aunt and uncle, and Aethas had no desire to hasten his impeding death at Vereesa’s hands. It had been bad enough the day she’d discovered them. 

“Your place then.” And Arator had always been so agreeable, so considerate. “It’s farther,” he warned. “Can you keep your hands off until we get back?” He licked an obscene stripe down the line of Aethas’s ear. “Personally, I like a challenge.” 

Aethas groaned again. He didn’t know _what_ he’d done in his life to deserve Arator Windrunner, but he wasn’t stupid enough to question it too hard. He reached up and hooked a hand around the back of Arator’s head, pulling him down roughly to crash their lips together. 

Arator laughed. Pulled away. “No,” he teased, and Aethas whined at the loss of hands in his hair, of Arator pressed against him. “We’re in public.”

Aethas didn’t consider his office to be exactly _public._ “That’s never stopped you before.” 

The grin spreading across the paladin’s face was positively wicked. “It’s stopping me now.” And he gently batted away the mage’s eager hands. “Let’s go,” he urged, and the way his face screwed up when he laughed was unfairly attractive. 

“I really need to invest in a lock for this office,” Aethas muttered, getting to his feet. “You distract me.” The tent in his robes was proof enough of that. 

“You were begging for a distraction,” Arator teased. As Aethas cast one last, distant glance at the ruin of his desk ﹣ piles of paperwork and city ordinances, a translation from an old edition of _Remnants of Zin-Azshari,_ and a proposal for his own Sunreaver faction ﹣ he knew the paladin was right. He’d been getting a headache, and had been reading the same passage for the past twenty minutes.

  
  


Arator lived in the Violet Citadel but Aethas didn’t. His flat was a good ten minute walk from the Citadel, and more than once he felt seized by the powerful urge to drag Arator into one of the many little alleys and shove him against a wall. (But he didn’t, because he did, in fact, possess some semblance of self control.) Dusk was falling, and the two nodded in greeting as they passed Windle Sparkshine, who had just started his rounds lighting the streetlamps. Aethas didn’t understand why the gnome didn’t use magic ﹣ it wasn’t as if Windle wasn’t a mage.

“Evening, boys,” Windle said pleasantly. Once, Aethas might have bristled at being called _boy_ ﹣ he was far from one ﹣ but Windle was old and perhaps to him, the agelessness of elves made them seem young in his eyes. The gnome lit the lamp at the head of Aethas’s street, and they bid him goodnight before turning down it. He itched to touch Arator, the paladin walking too close for comfort and stepping away with a laugh when he felt Aethas reach for him, and it was only when they stood on the mage’s front porch, Aethas fumbling with shaking fingers to unlock the door, that Arator slipped his hand in Aethas’s free one, twining their fingers together. 

“I win,” he breathed, closer now that they’d stepped inside. 

“What did you win?” Aethas laughed, finally able to wrap his arms around the other man’s waist. Arator spent his days in contemplation or training ﹣ for what, exactly, Aethas wasn’t sure ﹣ and it wasn’t uncommon for him to drop by before having shed his armor, sword strapped to his hip and sweaty from exertion. He’d changed today, into a thick robe woven in red and black, but the faint scent of sweat still clung to him. Or maybe not sweat, but just his natural musk. Either way it was intoxicating, and Aethas sunk back against his front door, pulling the paladin with him, grinding their hips together. 

“You.” 

Aethas flushed, his earlier headache forgotten as Arator pressed his lips to the hot skin, kissing the corner of his mouth and his cheek and his ear. How could Arator just… _say_ things like that? 

Aethas didn’t think he was much of a prize. When they had first met, more often than not he had been stressed and irritable and always so, so tired from endless council work and portaling twice a day and not enough sleep. But Arator had been patient, and in time it had only been in the paladin’s presence that Aethas could truly relax. Let go. Forget all his frustrations with Rommath and the Kirin Tor and Kael’thas’s decree. Began to really, truly enjoy what little free time he had. 

With Arator, Aethas had never been just a stop on the way to the prince or the Grand Magister. Indeed, Arator had never even met Kael’thas or Rommath. He had never been overlooked or ignored in favor of someone better. And Aethas supposed for Arator, the feeling was much the same. Aethas knew, in the back of his mind, that Arator’s parents were the legendary Turalyon and Alleria Windrunner. That he’d become a paladin to follow in the footsteps of his father, in the hopes of one day finding them again, of making him proud; and he knew that Arator was constantly, incessantly compared to them ﹣ to Alleria’s beauty and cunning, to Turalyon’s kindness and fierce determination. And though Aethas had grown up knowing _of_ Alleria Windrunner and her human lover, they had never been a fixture in his life the way they were to human paladins or Vereesa Windrunner. Perhaps if he’d been a Farstrider, as Alleria had once been, but he wasn’t. To him, Arator was simply _Arator,_ not the son of two famous heroes. He couldn’t compare Arator to his parents because he had never met them, had never had anything to do with them at all. And perhaps, as Arator had always seen him, Aethas had _seen_ Arator as well. 

“Let’s have a bath,” Arator was saying. “I could use one, and you could stand to relax a little more.” 

“My tub won’t hold us both.”

“Don’t be silly, of course it will. It has before.”

They kissed their way through the flat, shedding clothing as they went. When they reached the tub, Aethas poured a generous amount of scented oils in as it filled, watching Arator out of the corner of his eye. The paladin had pulled the ribbon from his hair, was using Aethas’s own brush to work through the snarls.

“Give me that,” Aethas said gently, holding a hand out for the brush, and Arator settled himself on the fluffy mat beside the tub, between Aethas’s legs as he perched on the edge, and allowed the mage to run the brush through his golden locks. 

For much of his life he had scorned blondes. Jealousy, mostly, if he were honest with himself, but he had always ﹣ before the jealousy ever started ﹣ had a deep-seated attraction to dark hair, the inky blacks and chocolate browns. He liked the contrast of it against his pale skin, appreciated the shine of sky blue eyes peering at him through a curtain of night. It was perhaps Arator’s only flaw, that he was blonde, but it was no detriment. The color paled in comparison to the fiery gold of his eyes, brought out the tan that so easily streaked his muscles. It made him look approachable and kind, gave him a certain innocence one associated with the characters in old classics. It highlighted his bond with the Light, made him seem at once holy and powerful and _good._

And, Aethas thought, as Arator inclined his head ever so slightly to press his lips to the insides of Aethas’s thighs, it completely masked his wicked, deviant tendencies. 

“Thank you,” the paladin murmured into his skin. “I can never work the tangles out as gently as you.”

“You have no patience.” Aethas leaned forward and dropped a kiss to the top of his head. 

“I don’t,” Arator lamented. “But I don’t need it, when you have so much.”

The mage ran his fingers through Arator’s hair, slick golden strands shining in the soft light of his washroom. “Come here,” he coaxed, tapping the paladin’s shoulder, and when Arator had eased himself into the tub, Aethas settled between his legs in a mirror of their earlier position, leaning back into Arator’s chest and listening to the gentle in and out of his breathing. 

He never knew what to expect from Arator Windrunner. Something as innocuous as a bath could remain that way, the two of them catching their breaths after a long day and relaxing in each other’s company; or it could turn devious, Arator holding him close and whispering filthy things into his ear as he trailed soap along his skin in a sexual mockery of getting clean. Tonight seemed to be the former, and Arator was gentle with him, lowering him carefully into the water to wet his hair and working sweet smelling soap into it, strong fingers massaging his scalp and making Aethas’s skin tingle. Arator was careful to keep the soap out of his eyes, and despite his earlier teasing, any kisses he gave were soft and chaste, not designed to rile him up but to soothe.

“Everything alright?” he murmured, using one hand to keep the water off Aethas’s face as he rinsed his hair with the other. He tucked a strand of wet fire behind his ear. “You looked so tense earlier.” Aethas couldn’t see Arator, of course, his back to the paladin’s chest, but the concern in his voice made his heart swell.

“Yeah. Just a long day.” He hummed as the other man wrapped his arms around his shoulders, ran a soft, soapy cloth over his chest. He hadn’t even seen Arator grab it. 

“You’ve been having a lot of those.” Aethas closed his eyes as Arator soaped first one of his arms and then the other, digging his fingers in through the cloth to the soft skin of his armpits, causing him to wriggle in his lap at the tickle. “Anything I can do to help?”

He meant Vereesa. Though she wasn’t on the Council of Six, Vereesa was still the wife of its head and kept the office of the Silver Covenant in the Citadel. Aethas saw a lot of the woman whether he wanted to or not. 

( _“Your nephew didn’t come_ **_home_ ** _,” he’d overheard this morning, the snap of anger misdirected at poor Rhonin._

_“He’s a grown man, darling,” Rhonin had said neutrally. “As long as he isn’t getting into trouble, he can do what he likes.”_

_“I would say Aethas Sunreaver is ‘trouble’!” Vereesa hissed, to which Rhonin had replied, “I like Aethas,” and angered her all the more.)_

“No.” While Aethas hadn’t gotten along with his own father, family to elfkind was still a precious, precarious thing, and he would not come between nephew and aunt. If Arator wished to speak to Vereesa he could, but Aethas wasn’t going to encourage it. He could handle Vereesa. “No,” he said again. “All I need is you.” 

He felt more than heard the low, answering chuckle. Arator pulled his hair over his shoulder, rested his head there. “You have me.”

“That I do.” 

They stayed in the bath until the water grew cold, and Aethas rose first, carefully stepping over the side of the tub and onto the safety of the bath rug. They had slipped more than once getting out of this tub (usually in their more heated, needy moments), despite the enchantments he had laid out on the floor. Gnomes, he’d heard, lined their tubs with small adhesive stickers, but Aethas didn’t know how he felt about that. He liked the smooth porcelain against his skin when he lounged in the water, and his skin was sensitive already to certain herbs used in the perfumed soaps and oils he favored. No need to chance an allergy to adhesive stickers too. Arator took his proffered hand, grinning easily as he climbed out. 

“You worry too much,” the paladin teased.

“Last time you got a concussion,” Aethas reminded him, wrapping Arator in a fluffy conjured towel. He preferred conjured towels; less clean up, and they never lost their softness. 

“Last time I was getting my dick sucked,” Arator pointed out. (And Light, the man could talk crudely, like the humans he’d been raised with.) But he took the towel and began drying himself off, safe from the bath’s treacherous waters. “Unless you’d like to try again?” He waggled his eyebrows in a way Aethas found both sexy and utterly ridiculous.

“I could do without worrying I’ve killed you,” Aethas laughed. 

“It would be a great way to go.”

And Aethas shoved him, lightly because he’d stepped off the mat, water pooling at his feet. “It wouldn’t be great for me!”

“Sure it would.” Arator grinned, running the towel down his dripping legs. “The bragging rights alone, giving a man an orgasm so powerful it killed him.” His cock, not quite erect but certainly very heavy and full, gave an interested twitch, and Aethas groaned.

“You are the worst paladin,” he said, throwing his own towel over his head and furiously scrubbing at his hair. “The things you say﹣!”

“We all have our vices,” the other man said agreeably. “Mine just happens to be a certain redheaded mage.” He reached over and gently slid the towel from Aethas’s head, patting the ends of his hair with it as though Aethas were a child. “Go lay down,” he urged, his touch soft through the fabric. He kissed him, the corners of his mouth turning up when Aethas attempted to pull him in. “Go lay down,” he repeated. “I’ll be right there.”

“What are you doing?”

“I have something for you,” Arator promised. “You’ll like it.” 

And Aethas did like it, he thought, as he lay on his stomach on his comfortable bed, Arator’s thick, warm body straddling his hips as he ran oiled hands along his back. Arator’s hands were _magic,_ applying just the right pressure to the tense knots in his shoulders and soothing the aches from his lower back. _You spend too much time hunched over your desk,_ Arator had chastised him more than once, _of course your back hurts._

He wondered if they taught this in the Silver Hand, if the instinctive seeking out of all his tightest, angriest spots was something all paladins were expected to know. 

“Was this what you’d planned when you kidnapped me from the Citadel?” Aethas teased. He could feel Arator’s erection against the curve of his ass, hot and thick, but Arator ignored it, kneading into a particularly sore spot beneath the mage’s shoulder blade.

“Actually, yes,” Arator confessed, wincing in sympathy at the pained noise his ministrations drew forth. “Sorry. Too hard?”

Aethas shook his head. “Just tender.”

“How did you hurt yourself? You sit at a desk all day.” 

“I stretch sometimes.” 

“I need to teach you how to stretch properly,” Arator grumbled, using his thumbs to loosen the knot. 

“You could do that now,” Aethas said hopefully, and the paladin chuckled. Bent low to press his lips to the offending shoulder blade. 

“Maybe later,” he murmured, his neglected erection twitching in protest. Soon Aethas was like jelly, every part of him loose and pliant and barely able to move, and Arator was chuckling again as he helped Aethas roll onto his back. “Feel better?”

“Light, yes.” He hadn’t known just how tightly coiled he’d been until Arator had unwound him, worked out every knot and made him melt into the mattress. Arator smiled, draped an arm over his side. Kissed his temple. “Have I told you you’re amazing?”

“You might have mentioned it in the past, yes.” 

“Well I’m mentioning it again,” Aethas said firmly. “Come here so I can repay you.” 

“You can’t even move,” Arator chuckled, throwing a leg over him, his knee brushing against Aethas’s cock which, until now, had been so quiet. No longer. Now that his headache was gone and all his frustrations pulled out of him, his dick was waking up, and was quickly making its presence known. Arator’s talented fingers quickly found it, his own hardness sliding obscenely along Aethas’s thigh. “I seem to have missed a spot.”

“Yes,” Aethas breathed. “Yes, you did.” He felt his legs falling open of their own accord, his hips rutting into Arator’s hand. “Several spots, actually.” 

Arator quirked an eyebrow. They didn’t generally do that. Aethas didn’t usually enjoy being penetrated, and Arator didn’t mind, but he certainly enjoyed the opportunity to give Arator the pleasure the paladin gave to him, and when he was in the mood, Arator’s beautiful fingers made the process easy, made the uncomfortable comfortable. He moved slowly, taking his time and allowing Aethas to adjust, and every so often the mage _craved_ the intimate touch of Arator inside him.

“You promised to make me feel good,” Aethas reminded him, breath hitching as the paladin’s hand slid lower.

“I did.” He was fully erect now, his dusky cockhead red and leaking. Arator generally preferred to be on the bottom, but he couldn’t deny that the idea of fucking Aethas, of his dick buried in Aethas’s tight ass, excited him. All he really wanted, from the moment he’d first saw him lying on that hospital bed, was to touch him, and Aethas ceding control like this meant he could do it as much as he liked. He would be the one in charge of Aethas’s pleasure, his strokes bringing him right to the edge and tipping him over. It was an intoxicating sort of power, one he always accepted when Aethas gave it. 

He drizzled more oil on his fingers and lay out on his side. His clean hand stroked Aethas’s hair, thumb brushing lightly over his temple. Aethas embarrassed easily, and from this angle Arator could see the gorgeous flush of his skin, the blush running all the way down to his cock as he teased just behind his heavy balls. His dislike of being watched and his embarrassment of praise often made him impatient, rutting into Arator’s hand for more friction than he was really ready for, and Arator had no intentions of letting him off that easily. 

“Light, you’re pretty,” he murmured, lips grazing the mage’s ear. “So pretty.”

Aethas’s blush deepened. Arator suspected part of the mage’s dislike of being penetrated was that he rushed it. He didn’t like giving up control and he colored as Arator’s eyes roved him hungrily, and he whined, high and needy, at the slowness of the pace. But Arator had learned that Aethas needed to be eased into such things and he took his time. The angle of his own body wouldn’t let him prep him properly and that was okay. He didn’t need to do that right now. Right now he needed Aethas to let go, to lean into his touch and understand that Arator had him, that he was safe and loved in Arator’s arms. 

(They hadn’t said it to each other yet. But the feeling was there, in every soft look, in every hungry kiss, in every devious grin and pleasured scream. Arator knew Aethas loved him; they didn’t have to say it yet.)

The mage was pliant and trembling beneath him when Arator finally shifted, finally stopped circling his delicate hole and kissed his way down Aethas’s abdomen, swirling his tongue in his navel and delicately touching his lips to the soft, velvety skin of Aethas’s cock. He’d learned, through trial and error, that the easiest, objectively best way to keep the mage loose and untense was to distract him, and Arator was nothing if not a good distraction. He poured even more oil on his fingers and went back to swirling them around Aethas’s hole, trailing them along his perineum and back as he ran his tongue along the length of Aethas’s needy erection. At some point, the mage’s hand found its way into his hair, and Arator took that as a good sign, an indicator that he’d managed to drag Aethas out of his own head and anchor him in this moment together. 

Arator took the mage in his mouth, chuckling lightly at the shudder that went through Aethas as he did, and for several moments did nothing more than bob lightly along the length of him, listening to the little gasps he elicited and slowly working his slick fingers back, prodding his little pucker gently. When he pushed in, carefully, slowly, Aethas clenched and Arator stopped, returning his focus to Aethas’s leaking cock, licking a broad stripe along the underside that relaxed him almost immediately. He pulled off with a soft pop, pressing his lips to the base. 

“Alright?” he murmured, flicking his eyes up despite knowing Aethas found it uncomfortable when he was watched while being blown. But Aethas wasn’t looking at him, head thrown back towards the ceiling.

“Don’t stop,” he panted. So Arator didn’t. 

In the time it took to stretch him, stopping to check on him and praise him and let him adjust, Aethas could have fucked Arator twice, but Arator didn’t mind. He forced his own thoughts away from his angry, unheeded cock ﹣ this night had never been about him, after all ﹣ and kept them trained on the mage beneath him. If he didn’t come at all, if he fucked Aethas until he sobbed with just his fingers alone, then he’d done what he’d set out to do and the night was a success, in his eyes. 

“Still with me?” he asked, mouthing along the delicate skin of Aethas’s thighs. He was three fingers deep, fucking the mage unhurriedly, ignoring the little bundle of nerves that might overstimulate him. 

“Yes.” Aethas’s hand tightened in his hair, almost painfully so. “A-arator,” he gasped. 

“Hmm?” He followed the tug on his hair, and when he was nearly on top of him, Aethas crushed their mouths together in a heated, sloppy kiss. “Please,” he breathed. 

Any other day, Arator would have made him say it. _Please what, Aethas?_ He delighted in deepening the blush on Aethas’s cheeks, in making him admit what he really wanted. But this was about Aethas, not Arator, and Aethas only obliged him because Arator liked to hear it. “You’re doing so good,” he said, kissing him again. “Are you sure?”

 _“Arator,”_ Aethas sobbed, more insistent now. 

His cock rejoiced as he slid in, despite the torturously slow pace. Arator watched Aethas beneath his lashes, ready to withdraw should it be too much. He was big, after all. _Too big,_ Aethas had told him more than once. But he seemed to have done a good job stretching him, because eventually he was sunk to the hilt in Aethas’s ass, breathing hard with effort and seeing stars. 

_“Light,”_ he swore. _“Fuck.”_ And Aethas loved when Arator swore, when he was so overcome he forgot himself. _How can you say such filthy things but you can’t say fuck?_ he’d often wondered. _“Fuck._ Aethas. You feel ﹣ _fuck.”_

Something about Arator, always so smooth and unruffled, coming undone _did_ things to Aethas. He felt tremendously full, and he wanted nothing more for Arator to fuck him until he cried. 

And when he came, eyes rolling back into his head and cock throbbing, Arator held him close, kissing his wet cheeks as Aethas drew in great gulps of air, trying to steady the hammering of his heart. _Nobody_ had ever made him feel like Arator did. No one could make him lose himself like Arator, could ground him so firmly in reality that he forgot about the Six and his endless work, about Vereesa and Rommath and Silvermoon, about his disgrace of a brother and his own insecurities. 

“Shhh,” Arator soothed, stroking his hair. “Shhh. It’s alright. I’ve got you.” 

* * *

Aethas Sunreaver was on Vereesa Windrunner’s shit list, but he found as time wore on that he cared less and less. He kissed Arator goodbye as they parted for the day, and fought the powerful urge to laugh at the unbridled fury on Vereesa’s face. He felt badly for Rhonin, who would surely bear the brunt of his wife’s tirade, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop smiling as he ascended the Citadel steps. All the stress and worry from the day before had been insistently and thoroughly fucked out of him, and not even Vereesa’s murderous stare could ruin that.

“Good morning, Vereesa,” he said brightly. “Morning Jaina.” 

“Ari’s been asking for you,” Jaina said, tactfully avoiding the subject of the paladin strutting down the street. “I think she wants her book back.” 

Aethas nodded. “It’s in my office. I’ll stop by after lunch.” He liked Ari, who resided in the Chamber of the Guardian and who rarely left after an accident robbed her of much of her faculties. She was kind and knowledgeable, when she put her mind to it, and she thought Arator the perfect match for his serious, insecure personality. 

Vereesa said nothing, lips pressed into a thin line, eyes fixated on the bruise he hadn’t quite hid well enough on his neck. As he passed her, he almost felt her gaze burning holes in his back. 

As far as Aethas was concerned, Vereesa Windrunner _could go fuck herself._

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it, leave a comment! I live for comments! 
> 
> This is my first time writing both porn and gay porn, please be gentle.


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